58 percent of voters open to backing independent candidate if faced with Biden, Trump: poll

Fifty-eight percent of voters said they were open to supporting a moderate, independent presidential candidate in a contest between President Biden and former President Trump, according to a new Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey released exclusively to The Hill on Monday.

Additionally, the survey found that majorities of voters said they do not want Biden or Trump to run in 2024.

Sixty-three percent of respondents said they did not want Biden to run for a second term, while only 37 percent said they did want him to run again in 2024. Meanwhile, 55 percent of respondents said they did not want Trump to run again in 2024. Forty-five percent said they thought the former president should run again.

“America wants to move forward not back and if they are faced with a Trump-Biden choice there will be an unprecedented opportunity for an independent candidate to run and win,” said Mark Penn, the co-director of the Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey. “I’ve never seen a number this high for an independent run.”

However, among their own bases, Trump and Biden are the top 2024 presidential picks. Thirty-seven percent of voters said that if the Democratic presidential primary for the 2024 election were held today they would vote for Biden, while 58 percent said they would vote for Trump if the GOP presidential primary were held today.

In a hypothetical match-up, 45 percent of respondents said they would vote for Trump, while 43 said they would vote for Biden.

Speculation has swirled around whether Biden, 79, and Trump, 75, will find themselves in a rematch in the next presidential election. Political watchers and voters have questioned both of their ages as well as their unpopularity among voters.

Trump, who is currently hitting the campaign trail for several GOP midterm candidates this year, has repeatedly floated a potential presidential run.

Last week, The Hill first reported that Biden told former President Obama that he plans to run again in 2024.

The Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey of 1,966 registered voters was conducted April 20 and April 21. It is a collaboration of the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University and the Harris Poll.

The survey is an online sample drawn from the Harris Panel and weighted to reflect known demographics. As a representative online sample, it does not report a probability confidence interval.